employees

In an apparent move to stave off defections to competitors, Google announced it is giving all its employees a $1,000 cash bonus and a raise of 10 percent, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The raises, which take affect January 1, 2011, apply to all 25,000 employees at the Internet giant, according to an e-mail to employees penned by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and first revealed by Business Insider. "We want to make sure that you feel rewarded for your hard work," Schmidt wrote. "We want to continue to attract the best people … Read more

Microsoft held a meeting with employees today, letting them know that the company plans to make changes to its health care plan, requiring workers to eventually start paying a portion of the insurance costs.

The software maker will continue to pay the full costs for worker health insurance for the next two years, before making workers start to contribute in 2013.

"We can confirm that Microsoft has begun to evolve its employee health care benefit," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said in a statement. "There will be no changes for the next two years, but in 2013, employees … Read more

OfficeTime is a flexible, low-key, and low-price time-tracking app, perfect for anyone who wants to track time across multiple tasks and projects.

OfficeTime uses a simple (if not particularly attractive) single-window interface, with a "play" button (to start or stop a timer) and a list of "sessions" associated with a given project. Each session can have a different billing rate and category (for example, admin or design), along with a record of time logged and any notes--all of which are easy to edit, in case you forget to start a timer or are working away from … Read more

Businesses, organizations, and others who have a lot of stuff going out all over the place need to know who's got what stuff where, not only to make sure it doesn't go missing, but also to maximize its usefulness and your return on investment; stuff isn't cheap. Kaizen Software's Asset Manager 2010 Enterprise Edition has an easy-to-apply answer to the problem of keeping track of stuff. This bar code label printer and manager creates custom bar codes that you can attach to equipment, materials, tools, supplies, and anything else that is all too portable. You can … Read more

Kaizen specializes in business software; its Asset Manager 2010 Standard Edition creates bar codes that you attach to your equipment or other physical assets. It makes it easy for employees or others to check tracked items in and out. You can even attach pictures, owner's manuals, maintenance records, and other relevant data to the database records. Asset Manager's easy-to-use database makes updating entries simple, and the program's reporting and vendor contact features can help simplify accounting, inventory management, and supply lines, too.

The program's familiar tabbed and paneled interface displays a navigation view on the left … Read more

Virtual TimeClock Basic is a slimmed-down, inexpensive version of Virtual TimeClock Pro, perfect for small businesses (with three employees max for Basic) that need to track hours and generate time card reports.

This app helps you set up a central time clock computer (Mac or Windows) for all employees to use. Workers can clock in and out, take breaks, log holiday and sick time, and update their status with preset or customizable messages. Employees gets their own password, and management can survey up-to-the minute times and totals, as well as historical data. Virtual TimeClock Basic also lets you quickly print … Read more

It's like Katie Holmes telling Tom Cruise she prefers Brad Pitt's movies. It's like Rupert Murdoch's wife googling a Wall Street Journal article to get past the paywall. It's like Reggie Bush telling Kim Kardashian that her sister Khloe is cuter than she is.

This is hurt, anguish, and embarrassment all wrapped up in one corporate migraine. The problem, you see, is that there are quite a few people at Microsoft who love the iPhone. At least that is what an article in The Wall Street Journal is suggesting.

The article offers stories of Steve Ballmer himself pretending to stomp on an employee's iPhone. It tells of Microsoft employees being sheepish about exposing their Apple-made contraptions in meetings. It even suggests that as many as 10 percent of Microsoft employees might be in the thrall of the Cupertino King.

Naturally, there will be those who suggest such behavior is heresy. Ballmer, according to the article, explains that when his father worked for Ford, the family only drove Fords. But in those days, corporations were slightly different beings than they are now. People believed they had a job that would last forever, rather than one that might not survive the next clever little financial ruse from some halfwit on Wall Street or the next pandering to Wall Street by a halfwitted CFO. Employees offered loyalty, because they thought it would be returned. What hope is there now of that?

It is, though, a ticklish area. Does an employee's preference for the iPhone suggest that Microsoft products aren't good enough? Why, yes it does. At least for them. But does that have to be a bad thing?… Read more

CyberMatrix Timesheets Standard is a basic program that allows employees to keep track of time spent on specific projects. Although it has some appealing features, functional problems undermine its usefulness.

The program's interface is plain, and the creators didn't go to any great lengths to make it attractive or intuitive. Still, it's not terribly difficult to figure out. You add your employee and client information, and when each employee logs in, he or she can record the time spent on specific clients' projects. Projects are listed on drop-down menus within the timesheet. The program allows up to … Read more

The publisher's description of Senomix Timesheets claims that it's designed for "engineering or project-based offices." We think this is a good thing, as it will likely take an engineer to figure out how to use it.

It's not that the program lacks instructions. The problem, in fact, is that the publishers have gone to the opposite extreme. Who has time to read a 31-page "getting started" guide? Better yet, who has time to read the full 84-page user guide, or the admin user guide, which weighs in at a staggering (and ridiculous) 256 … Read more